Abstract: Memoirs and office files, relating to UNRRA and IRO relief work for displaced children in Austria at the end of World War
II.

Language:
English.

Administrative Information

Access

Collection is open for research.

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Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. To determine if this has occurred, find
the collection in Stanford University's online catalog at
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/ . Materials have been added to the collection if the number of boxes listed in the online catalog is larger than the number
of boxes listed in this finding aid.

Access Points

International Refugee Organization.

United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

Child welfare--Austria.

International relief.

World War, 1939-1945.

World War, 1939-1945--Austria.

World War, 1939-1945--Children.

World War, 1939-1945--Civilian relief.

World War, 1939-1945--Refugees.

Austria.

Biographical History.

Aleta Brownlee began her employment with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation
Administration as a Welfare Specialist on the Yugoslavian Mission in 1945. Later that
year she was transferred to Vienna and promoted to Director of Child Welfare in Austria.
In that position, both with UNRRA and with the International Refugee Organization (which
superceded UNRRA in 1947), she worked with displaced children. The Child Welfare Agency
had the responsibility of locating and reestablishing, either through repatriation or
resettlement, children who had been moved from their homelands during the war. Ms.
Brownlee continued this work until 1950 when the International Refugee Organization
ceased its activities.

The collection consists almost exclusively of UNRAA and IRO documents. Of these, a small
number relate to the Welfare Program in Yugoslavia directly after the war. The
overwhelming majority of documents, however, concerns the location and reestablishment of
orphans and children separated from their parents. Approximately 35% of the collection is
comprised of case files, complete with the children's histories and their eventual
placement. Occasionally there is follow-up correspondence from the children. The
remainder of the UNRRA and IRO documents concern the problems of finding children
absorbed by the Third Reich and what should be done with them once found. The
correspondence, memoranda and transcripts of meetings relating to the specific problems
of Polish, Yugoslavian and Russian refugees are the most complete. Included in the
collection is documentation relating to the roles played by various national chapters of
the Red Cross and by the French, American, British and Soviet military governments.
Considered all together, the UNRRA and IRO documents chronicle both the operations and
the results of the Child Welfare Program in Austria from 1945 to 1950.

Also included in the collection is a manuscript, "Whose Children?," written by Aleta
Brownlee ca. 1950-1951 concerning her experiences with UNRRA and IRO. In addition there
is a very small miscellany file.